Penelope Stanford does her female ancestors a disservice in claiming that australopithecine “females [had] little agency in the selection of mates” (Polygynous apes may explain men of today, Letters, 20 December). A species in which female choice did not underpin mate selection, as it does in practically all animal species, would deteriorate rapidly under the enfeebling influence of mediocre male genes. She is right that polygynous species mean many males with no partners – our own genetic record shows far fewer fathers than mothers in any individual’s ancestry – and that males will fight each other for reproductive privileges.
But any Palaeolithic proto-human female would never want her own offspring to end her genetic line – and feeble sons have little chance of gaining reproductive privileges against tougher males. Her solution is to choose males who prove themselves capable of dominating other males, so that her sons will do the same in the next generation. Polygamy is an excellent solution for females to the perennial problem of too few high-quality males. It may not be a nice ancestry, I agree, but would she say this explains a lot about the behaviour of some females nowadays? I would be surprised.
David Clifford
Cambridge
• Yes, polygynous apes may explain men of today. But in the past there were solutions to the problem of surplus males: the navy, the army and the monasteries. Today they are sent into politics.
Basil Smith
Dover, Kent
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